He took Isabelle’s hand from her father’s; while the court bowed, he whispered to her that a beautiful dog, white as snow and with a golden collar, awaited her in England. The child gazed up silently into his shrewd, friendly eyes. She thought he was a much more impressive king than her father; he was not so young as her uncle of Orléans, but surely he was taller. Her hand warmed in his. After many ceremonial farewells, the King and Queen of England embarked with their retinues. They arrived in Dover the same day.
At first, his wife’s departure had left Louis feeling gloomy. His melancholy would not yield to hours of prayer and meditation in the Celestine monastery, nor to continual concentration on affairs of state, nor yet to absorption in games and the hunt. Jealously he had watched the departure of the crusaders; at that moment he could conceive of no more enviable lot than had fallen to these men, who were free to seek valorous adventure. He could — and this thought especially tormented him — have been riding at the head of the armies, instead of Jean de Nevers. The state of affairs in Italy had grown increasingly confused; the cities of Florence, Genoa, Savona, Adorna, played a double-dealing game with one another and with France and Milan; negotiations which accomplished nothing, pacts which none of the parties observed, equivocal statements which only clouded the issues further.
It seemed to him often during the course of that year that every enterprise he undertook or had ever undertaken was doomed to failure. The negotiations with the Pope in Avignon had collapsed; the Prince of the Church, entrenched in his city, had solemnly declared that he would never be dislodged. The University incessantly pressed for action, while the princes of Europe, on the other hand, whose opinions and help had been requested, answered generally in an evasive way. No one seemed to want to involve himself with this painful matter of the schism. The King was hardly in a condition to render a judgment. Berry and Bourbon chose to remain aloof. And because Burgundy always worked more and more zealously for cession, Louis felt constrained to support the authority of Avignon. At the moment, however, he could not do much; there was too much discord and dissension, and in any event the public was distracted by the crusade and the marriage of the princess.
In the month of August, Louis visited his wife in the castle of Asnieres, on the occasion of the birth of his son Philippe — named not without irony after the Duke of Burgundy. During this visit Louis had an opportunity to devote his full attention for the first time to little Charles. The child was now about two years old, of a rather delicate constitution and, in his father’s opinion, a littie too quiet and gentle. He would sit for hours in the same spot in the garden or hall playing with a stone, a flower, a piece of colored cloth.
“Doesn’t he ever laugh, this son of mine?” Louis asked the Dame de Maucouvent. She replied that the child was grave because Valentine had been depressed during her pregnancy, and because his first year had been spent in the Hotel de Behaigne in an atmosphere of tension and uncertainty. Louis picked the child up and let him play with his gold chain and the hilt of his dagger, which was shaped like a rolled-up hedgehog. The child stared at the gleaming ornaments with bright grey-green eyes, but he did not attempt to touch them or crow with joy as his dead older brother would have done.
To Valentine, Louis gave costly gifts and a considerable sum of money to spend on decorations for her apartments. But he did not stay very long with his wife; he had to return to Paris to help with preparations for Isabelle’s bridal journey.
The days he spent in Saint-Omer gained significance for Louis chiefly because he met a remarkable and interesting man there: Henry Bolingbroke, the eldest son of the Duke of Lancaster. In this taciturn, somewhat rough and moody young man, Louis saw a companion in distress: here too was a gifted, ambitious prince’s son who condemned his government’s policies. Orléans and he were about the same age — it was natural that, among the other princes, they should seek each other’s company at meals and at the hunt. Their relationship hovered on the brink of friendship; they got on well with each other, but despite jests and courtesies neither of them forgot that they pursued absolutely opposed interests. Secretly each attempted to gauge how useful the other might be to him in the future. Their parting was comradely enough to awaken in Richard of England and the Duke of Burgundy the hope that Lancaster’s son could perhaps be won over to the peace.
Toward the end of November, the King of France and the Regents returned to Paris. Orléans took advantage of a temporary improvement in the King’s condition to enlarge his landed property considerably and to acquire command of the usufruct. When all the relevant documents had been signed, he saw with satisfaction that his possessions were, in extent and value, hardly second to those of any other princes of the blood. The Dukes, greatly angered by this move, commented on his avarice. So the Christmas season came — but peace was still far off.
Following an ancient tradition, the King of France gave an elaborate banquet on Christmas Eve, at which not only royalty, the court and eminent officials sat at table, but also numerous burghers. In addition, on the ground floor of Saint-Pol an open table was provided for the people of Paris. The Christmas feast of 1396 was not less lavish in any way than its predecessors; as always, vast amounts of game and pastry appeared on the tables, and plenty of good wine was on hand. In the palace banquet hall, high-ceilinged and wide as the nave of a cathedral, the King entertained his guests. It was very crowded and sweltering; so many torches were burning that one could almost believe one was dining in daylight. At the royal table, beside the King and Isabeau, who was pregnant again, sat the Dukes of Burgundy and Berry with their wives; old Bourbon and Louis d’Orléans, surrounded by a number of highly-placed people, including many wives of men who had gone to Turkey with Jean de Nevers. Since early summer, little or nothing had been heard of the crusaders; the messengers repeatedly dispatched by the King to Hungary and Italy had brought back only vague reports.
The mood at the Christmas feast, at least at the royal table, was constrained. The King stared sleepily at the performance in the center of the hall, a battle between armored knights and a dragon; Isabeau, weighed down by her ungainly body, did not feel up even to feigning interest in what was going on around her. Conversation at the table was dull, despite the wine; even Louis d’Orléans, who was usually the center of attention on these occasions, spoke little. His glance wandered again and again to a certain spot at one of the lower tables where, among the lords and ladies of the royal retinue, beside her husband, the Dame de Cany sat, dressed in dark green. Aubert de Cany showed his wife every conceivable attention, but Mariette did not laugh and seldom responded — she was constantly aware of Orléans’ eyes upon her. Whenever she raised her head she saw him, sitting next to the royal chair; he rested his chin upon his fist, scarcely touched his food but took some wine. When their eyes met, the young Dame de Cany was overcome once more by the emotion which had tormented her day and night during her service with the Duchess of Orléans. Her heart began to thump, slowly and violently. She forced herself to look only at her husband, or to keep her eyes on her plate. But she heard nothing that was said to her and could scarcely remember where she was.
About nine o’clock in the evening, a commotion started at one of the entrances to the hall; the sound of raised voices was audible above the hubbub at the tables. Out of the throng at the door a man appeared, booted and spurred, in torn clothes, sweating and exhausted. He crossed the hall, heedless of the sham fight that was going on there and threw himself, still breathless and unable to speak, onto his knees before the King. At first no one knew who he was; Louis d’Orléans finally recognized the dirty, deadly tired man as Jacques de Helly, one of the knights of de Nevers’ retinue, a vagabond and adventurer who had the reputation of being very familiar with the routes to the East. The King looked at him apathetically, without comprehension; his expression did not change when de Helly cried out hoarsely, “Sire, my King, I come from Basaach’s camp — our army was destroyed near the city of Nicopolis on Saint MichaePs Day!”